Chapter Two

There was a long moment in which the main thought running through Amber’s head was a constant repetition of the sort of language that would have made her mom exceptionally disappointed in her.

Something else scrambled below, and she snapped out of it.

“We could help you,” the thing on the edge of her father’s bed said.

“Shut up,” she hissed at it. “I don’t need you making noise.”

“We’re telepathic. Very few things could hear what we say without us wanting to.”

Amber looked at it for a moment. It certainly felt as if she was hearing it. The cat stared back with brilliant blue eyes, entirely too innocent.

She shook it off and started looking for something to arm herself with. If she was going to defend herself, she needed a weapon.

“You’re not even considering our offer?”

“I’m not making any sort of contract with you,” Amber whispered back.

The creature started walking along the surface of the bed. Somehow it didn’t leave any dimples on the blankets as it moved. “We don’t contract anyone. Not in the way you humans think of it. We only ask that you allow us to observe and teach you after you become a magical girl. You could use the power to protect yourself and your dad!”

Amber opened a closet as silently as she could. There were clothes there. Her dad’s stuff. And a few boxes, filled with old dresses and things that belonged to her mom that they couldn’t get around to giving away. There was also a baseball bat.

She took it, careful not to make too much noise. The bat was cold, made of aluminum with some tape around the handle. She weighed it in both hands. It was about as light as a bat could be. A few swings humming through the air and she felt a little better.

“Depending on what kind of creature is down there, that might not be enough to harm it.”

Amber looked over to the creature. “What do you mean?” she whispered.

Tails wagging, it stared at her. “Creatures from Agartha don’t always play by the same rules. Many of them interact with the world in very specific ways. If you hunt them, you need to know these. That’s why magical girls go to academies!”

“Will this work on whatever’s down there?” Amber asked. She waved the bat around, then noticed the inhaler on the ground. She swiped it up and tucked it away.

“It might. We suspect that the thing in your house is a boogieman.”

Amber had heard of those. A little. Mostly about how they were once the things used by parents to scare their kids into listening. That was, before the real thing started showing up and snatching people off the streets whenever the veil broke.

“Can it die?” Amber asked.

“They can. Boogiemen are entirely physical. They are magically quite weak. Were it not for their ability to turn their prey into more of their number then they would likely be long extinct. Of all the nightmares, they are one of the most feeble.”

Amber bit her lip and looked over to the door leading out. It was the weakest. Weakest doesn’t mean much when it still takes the army and a few teams of magical girls to clear out a bad break.

“How strong is it compared to a person?” Amber asked in a mutter.

The creature tilted its head. “On Earth? Weaker than a grown man. We’re aware that that is a subjective evaluation though. Were you to agree and become a magical girl, you would become a lot stronger, not to mention far more resilient and capable of moving faster.”

“No thanks,” Amber said.

She hesitated a little. Staying hidden was the obvious thing to do. Wait until the thing moved on.

But her dad was choking on nothing in the basement. Worse, she knew him. If she didn’t come down soon, able to breathe or not, he would come up looking for her.

The odds of him fighting off some sort of monster, in his condition...

“What do they do to people?” she asked.

“Once a boogieman has found a victim, usually one that’s alone, they drag them to a place where they can subdue them. Then they reproduce with the victim, producing a new boogieman.”

“They rape people?” Amber hissed.

“Oh, it isn’t sexual in the least, we assure you.”

Amber shuddered. “They can die when you hit them, right?”

The creature nodded. “They can.”

She had done a few things that she was uncomfortable with in the past. Stepping out on-stage, going out to meet people she didn’t know. Sitting and waiting in a room for bad news. Every time, it felt better to just rip off the band-aid.

Amber held the bat up like a sword to one side as she stepped out of the room. Her eyes roved everywhere, taking in the dusty corner, the slight cracks in the drywall, the little details that she ignored a dozen times a day.

She had never felt unsafe at home before.

The crashing downstairs increased, the thing was, at a guess, in the kitchen. Close to where her dad was hiding.

The stairs creaked as she started down them. She swallowed, hand tightening over the handle.

Another step, then another. It creaked again.

The crashing from the kitchen stopped.

Amber looked back, idly noting that the white creature was sitting at the top of the stairs, looking at her curiously. “When you fight it, try to hit it first. Boogiemen are weak, and are aware of their weakness. They tend to run when faced with an adversary that can combat them.”

At least the thing’s helpful.

Amber stepped down, turning away from the creature as she did.

She only noticed the hand reaching for her ankle when it was almost there already.

Amber gasped and moved her foot back.

Her ankle brushed the hand and shivers ran up her side at the contact.

Something growled from below, and she could only just make out the pale-blue form of some long-armed person standing pressed to the side of the staircase.

There was something screaming at her to run. Probably her common sense.

Instead of turning tail, Amber stumbled down the rest of the steps and practically bounced off the wall at the bottom. She brought her bat high above her head, swinging it with a grunt that turned into a desperate scream as it thumped into something fleshy.

The boogeyman screeched and jumped backwards.

Amber tightened her grip on the bat and stared her opponent down.

It was just as scary as the news articles and rumours online had said. Gaunt skin of a disgusting blue, a face with an eye where the nose should have been, and another above that. Twin slits to the side pumped open and closed with the boogieman’s every breath.

It opened its mouth to reveal ordinary human teeth that were rotten and black.

Amber screamed and ran at it, bat already swinging.

The boogeyman clutched one of its arms and darted back into the kitchen.

Her bat sang through the air and hit the wall, leaving a sizable dent in the sheetrock next to a photo of her family smiling proud at her elementary graduation.

“That’s certainly a very interesting way to fight.”

Amber glanced up to the stairs where the white creature was looking at her through the bars. “Shut up,” she said.

“How very rude.” It jumped down and landed behind her without making so much as a thump.

“Why are you here?” Amber asked. I’m stalling. Can’t just stand here and talk to this thing all day. “Don’t you have better things to do?”

“We do. But there are many of us here. Where magical girls go, we go! We’re always around, always watching.”

“Are you trying to sound creepy on purpose?” Amber asked.

The thing tilted its head, sat down, then started to lick its paw.

“Amber?”

Her heart froze. That had been her dad’s voice, coming from the kitchen. No, the door leading to the basement. She heard the creak of the steps taking his weight.

“Dad, stay down there!” she called out.

“Wh-what?” he asked. It was muffled, but even then she could tell he was racing for breath.

Amber stepped out into the corridor leading to the kitchen. There was no boogeymen in sight, though the backdoor was smashed open, wooden shards sprinkled across the kitchen’s linoleum.

She stepped out into the kitchen.

That’s when she saw it. The monster perched in the corner, nursing its arm.

It screeched and leapt at her.

Amber brought her bat up, but it was too slow, too weak to stop the Boogeyman from crashing into her.

Long arms scrambled, and dirty-nailed fingers started to claw at her chest and sides.

Amber collapsed onto her back, the boogeyman above her. She held the bat to ward away its face, but that didn’t stop long fingers from jabbing into her.

She had never actually been in a fight before. No martial arts or anything, not even a schoolyard scuffle. She didn’t know what to do. But I’m not going to let you eat me!

Bending a knee up, Amber planted her sneaker against the Boogeyman’s chest and heaved.

The monster, still holding onto her side, went up and over and crashed into a little table covered in knick-knacks.

Amber rolled over and to her feet. A step forwards and a swing of her arm brough the bat crashing down on the Boogeyman’s head with an almost comical bonking noise.

It was less comical when the monster smacked the weapon aside and sent it skidding across the floor.

It stood up to its full height. One long arm bent awkwardly at the middle, its head oozing black blood where she’d hit it and broken skin.

Amber backed away from it, eyes darting around for something to use as a weapon.

The first thing she grabbed was a pan, a big black thing usually used for eggs.

The boogeyman jumped at her, its one hand wide as it reached for her face.

She smacked it aside, then stepping up, brought the pan down onto the monster’s head.

It recoiled with a shriek, eyes closing and head turning away. So she hit it again, then again.

The boogeyman fell to its knees.

Amber twisted her torso around and swung the pan with every last bit of desperate force she had left in her. The reverberation sent the now-bent pan clattering to the ground. The boogeyman slumped.

She panted, trying to catch her breath while her heart thundered away in her chest.

The door to the basement opened and her dad, wheezing and sweaty, stumbled into the kitchen. “Am-Amber? What?” He saw the monster on the ground and raced to her side. “Is it dead?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

He pulled her into his chest, hands coming up around her in a powerful hug. “Okay. That’s okay. Come, back, back downstairs.”

“I have your inhaler,” she said.

“Later, later.”

Amber didn’t resist when he pulled her towards the basement. She did look over to the white creature now sitting on the counter.

“If you ever change your mind, just call us!” it said. “Our name is Seelie. Repeat it thrice and we’ll be there in little more than a moment.”

She lost sight of it as she was pushed towards the basement and had to look down not to miss a step.

Her father brought her to the corner, with the sofa, and after taking a pull from the inhaler she pushed into his hands, sat her down next to him. “It’ll be okay. It’ll be fine,” he repeated while holding her close.

She felt small. Small and tired and not at all fine. But she had to believe that maybe it would be fine later.

***